You probably don’t need to tell anyone who Frida Kahlo is, and if you do, I suggest you don’t read any further. This woman captivated the world not only with her various works of art, but also with her self-portraits, which are still considered one of the best.
Frida spent her entire childhood in the house that is located in Mexico City, and today is better known as the Frida Kahlo Museum.
In order to enter this museum, you need to plan your visit well in advance, so tickets are bought at least two to three weeks in advance, according to the exact time of entry, which is divided into 15-minute intervals. This means you won’t be let in a minute early. Although the museum is closed on Mondays, visitors are welcome until 6 p.m. on all other days.
Although our visit time was 3:45pm, we were already standing in the general queue at the entrance long before. A sign posted announced that visitors would be admitted at exactly the said time. The line was quite long, but when it was time for our visit, everyone was let in pretty quickly. The ticket for an adult costs 320 pesos or almost 18 EUR.
It must be said that no one would confuse this house with any other on the entire street. Bright blue walls and a clear inscription above indicate that you are visiting one of the world’s most famous artists.
As soon as we enter, we are immediately directed to a special exposition, which tells about Frida’s life and works in chronological order. Specifically, this house is special because the artist spent most of her life here, first with her family, and later with her husband Diego Rivera.
There are many personal belongings of the artists on display, such as paintings, photographs, documents, books and furniture.
In addition to the stories themselves, the truly unique personal items used by her are fascinating: a bedside table, brushes, paints and unusual furniture for ordinary houses – because all the exhibited beds have mirrors that she used to paint her self-portraits while looking at them.
The most curious can take a look at her kitchen, which is painted in extremely bright yellow and blue colors, and the employee standing nearby shows the bed on the top floor where Frida died.
When you go out into the inner courtyard of the house, you will find a small garden with fountains, next to which Frida’s photos are also hung in one place or another of the garden.
If you go a little further to the side – and a small souvenir shop, where you can buy one other little thing for memory.
It is true that we buy souvenirs after leaving the museum. On the other side of the street, dealers simply offer them at better prices, although here you have to pay around 14 EUR for a cloth shopping bag with Frida’s image.
It is an interesting fact that when she was still alive, she wanted to leave this house as a museum, so Diego Rivera fulfilled this woman’s dream.
After her death, the exhibition was designed by the couple’s friend, museum and poet Carlos Pellicer. The house itself is said to have remained exactly as it was in the 1950s.
